Jamaica’s broadband penetration rate climbed past 100% of the population for the first time on record, according to the Office of Utilities Regulation’s fourth-quarter 2025 market report, the first telecoms dataset published since Hurricane Melissa struck the island in October.

Total broadband penetration reached 104.35%, up from 85.35% in the third quarter and 82.25% a year earlier. The jump was driven almost entirely by mobile data. Mobile broadband subscriptions rose 30.15% quarter over quarter to 2.38 million, an increase of more than 552,000 subscribers in three months, as customers whose fixed lines went down during the storm moved to wireless plans instead.

The fixed-line side of the market moved in the opposite direction. Fixed voice subscriptions dropped 14.15% to 400,290, with residential lines down 18% while business lines actually grew 3.62%. Domestic fixed voice revenue fell 36.2% to $616 million, down from $965.64 million the prior quarter, the steepest single-quarter revenue decline in the OUR’s published data series.

Flow, Jamaica’s largest fixed-line operator, absorbed the heaviest damage. Parent company Liberty Latin America told investors that Melissa cost the group at least US$20 million in lost revenue, on top of significant infrastructure repair costs, and that the company lost 136,000 revenue-generating units across its Jamaican operations at the storm’s peak.

International calling told a related story. International mobile voice revenue jumped 61.9% to $536.2 million as displaced residents and relatives abroad tried to stay in contact during the crisis, while international fixed voice revenue rose 14.9% on a smaller base.

To restore service in areas where cables and towers were destroyed, Flow has partnered with Starlink to roll out satellite connectivity in hard-to-reach zones. The company has said it expects to return to pre-hurricane profitability by the end of 2026.

Jamaica’s mobile phone penetration first crossed the 100% threshold in 2004, a product of the rapid subscriber growth that followed the market’s liberalisation in 2001. It has taken roughly two decades for broadband penetration to reach the same milestone, and it arrived only after a hurricane forced a structural shift in how Jamaicans connect.